Black Bag by Luke Kennard

Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026--San Antonio

Black Bag by Luke Kennard has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.  It's a unique novel--quirky, and often funny.  It's the story of a mid-30s want-to-be-actor who has been confined only to small parts.  In his need to make money to pay his bills, he often goes to a website for unusual opportunities (such as being in a music video, making an appearance at a conference, etc.).  One day, he interviews with a professor who needs an actor of short stature to attend his two class sessions and a seminar session each week for the semester.  He will be classified as a research assistant, and his task will be to wear a black leather bag with two short leg sections and will zip up so that he is completely enclosed from the calves to the top of his head.  Two holes are punched to provide him a way of seeing where he is going.  His job is to show up, be completely still and quiet, will avoid any interaction with any of the students, and will avoid reacting in any way (sounds, movements, etc.) to whatever is happening.  He can show up on campus and wander around so that students in the class can see him (always in the black bag) and realize he isn't just in their classroom.  The premise of the experiment is not revealed to him or the reader until the end of the book.  But the story goes far beyond the classroom and what is happening there.  It incorporates many of the strange aspects of today's society--a friend who is an "influencer" who develops a way to monetize the situation (including the development of merchandise and a digital coin, a female professor who find the anominity, not having ever seen him outside the bag, and the leather aspect arousing and sexually interacts with him, a cult group developing around the black bag concept as a way of working to change society, etc.  And it involves "BIack Bag" as he is known and calls himself to, over time, begin to like and find comfort in his roll.  I wish the book were a bit more hilarious and the intriguing aspects a bit more developed.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Henry Henry by Allen Bratton

Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026--San Antonio

Henry Henry by Allen Bratton was highly recommended by NPR and the New York Times.  It is set in Britain and built around the history of a family that has been a part of the aristocracy for 400 years or more--a family that is also very Catholic (and ridden with Catholic guilt) that refused to convert during the Reformation.  The story is set mostly in the 2010s with flashbacks into the late 1900s.  The protagonist is Hal (short for Harry), the eldest son and the heir to Henry who is the Duke of Lancaster.  Hal is what the people of his social class would probably call a rascal because of his heavy drinking and use of drugs leading to outrageous and scandalous public behavior.  More ordinary people there would call him an arsehole.  But as the information about his and the family's life builds, there is a shocking revalation for why he might be this way.  The title of the book references two Henrys--it's Hal's father and his grandfather.  And quickly you learn that Hal's father wasn't first in line for succession.  His uncle Richard was, and the title only transferred to his father Henry when Richard, a gay man, died of AIDS.  Early in the book it is revealed that homosexual attraction has been a part of the family for decades.  Richard was the first to live his life as one.  Hal is the second.  It is never defined to what extent the men may have been bisexual, but it is obvious that the others have not been content with being completely straight after marrying women to have children and maintain the family line.  The book carries us through the battles between Hal and his father, the secrets within the family, their unhappiness, and the realization that the family pretige and wealth are declining.  Behind all this is a real shocker revealed by Hal that has been a major reason for him acting the way he does.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Rosarita by Anita Desai

Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026--San Antonio

Rosarita by Anita Desai is a beautiful, short novel.   A young Indian woman has learned very little about her family.  She was raised by her grandparents for a number of years before going to live with her parents and younger sister.  She knows little about her mother who has died.  She recalls, however, that she led a quiet life, slept on the floor in a small annex to the parents' bedroom rather than in the bed with her father, and that her father tended to berate and abuse her mother (although she is just now beginning to recall this which she had apparently repressed in hopes it wasn't true).  She decides that she needs to do something special with her life and gets her grandfather to agree to let her go to San Miguel de Allende for Spanish language classes.  Soon after arriving, however, she is sitting on the central plaza and is recognized by an older lady. The Trickster(?), as obviously the daughter of an Indian friend who came there to study painting years ago.  The young woman insists that this cannot be true.  To try to convince her, the elderly woman says that her friend's name was Rosarita, but Bonita (the young Indian woman with a Spanish name) says her mother's name was Sarita, wasn't an artist, and had never been to Mexico.  Then she rushes away.  But as days pass, she realizes the coincidences--her name, her mother's name, the close resemblence between her and her mother that made the woman recognize her, the fact that there had been an unexplained painting on her bedroom wall of a woman with a young child, etc.  So he story becomes her interest in trying to learn what she can about this woman who might have been her mother.  To tell more would be to spoil the book.  Just know that it was such a delightful read that I gave it 5 stars out of 5.

Taipei Story by R. F. Kuang

Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026--San Antonio

Taipei Story by R. F. Kuang is about the experience of an American student of Chinese descent at Yale who is in Taiwan for an intensive summer program to try to become fluent in Mandarin--a larguage she did not learn as a child but has studied at Yale.  It covers the frustrations of the difficulty of the program, of a relationship with a handsome boy (who has also come from Yale) that goes bad with his telling a lie about what happened to all the other students in the summer program, a relationship with a friend from Yale who is sharing a local apartment that has also gone bad because the friend has a crush on the handsome boy and wanted to date him herself, the difficulty and frustrations of learning she is facing compared to how easily she has been able previously to go through educational classes making the highest grades, the slow progress of improving in speaking the language during the course, how the sudden death of her grandfather means she will not be able to use her new language skills to try to learn about their family history which her mother has always been reluctant to discuss, and her realization as she returns home that she will never be able to use the language skills she has developed in a professional way and that she is at the peak of those skills which will slowly degrade as time passes and she continues to live in an English-speaking USA.  There are lots of discussions of foods being eaten, tourist sites being visited, cultural events being experienced, what is being discussed in classes, etc.  It's all interesting, but there was nothing that made me excited about reading the story.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

The Tuxedo Society by Paul Rudnick

Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026--San Antonio

The Tuxedo Society by Paul Rudnick was not as good a book as I expected based on reviews.  The problem for me was at the beginning and at the end.  The beginning was filled too much with the main character showing off how he could relate almost everything in life to a movie or a Broadway show character or its performer in a witty way.  It fairly quickly became exhuasting and boring.  The end had another stretch of this.  In the middle was an interesting heist story.  An unsuccessful actor working in a candle shop, he was recruited to be a part of a group of secret agents solving crimes led by a former Navy Seal who had been kicked out of the Navy for being gay and later, after don't ask/don't tell occurred was asked to return.  Instead, the Seal requested that he be allowed or organize his own elite group for special assignments.  In the book, the Seal has recruited the main character because of his acting background to help with a special heist job.  The group is tasked with helping the First Lady, educated and trained as a top archaeologist, investigate whether the rumor about the historic diadem is true  The 3 stones and the crown itself which supposedly had secret powers each bestowed to the person(s) in possession of them, had long ago been dismantled and hidden to keep anyone else from attaining the powers that could come from the parts or the whole.  The rumor, if true, is that the 3 stones are on the market and bad men are trying to buy the to gain the powers they can bestow.  It becomes an extended adventure for this elite group--The Tuxedo Society.  They are trying intercept the stones first to protect society from three men with bad intentions (each wanting one of the stones for its specific powers).  Then it finally becomes a hunt for a worse person wanting all 3 stones and the crown to restore the whole diadem so that they could have all of the powers bestowed by it.  It's an interesting adventure story involving the President and First Lady, the Pope, and multiple wealthy individuals including a dastardly protestant minister running for President.  It's just too bad it is bookended by the rather tiring beginning and ending.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Switzy by Emma Cline

Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026--San Antonio

Switzy by Emma Cline is longlisted for the Booker Prize.  I have now read 60% of the books on that list, and it is likely that this will also continue onto the shortlist for the prize and will likely be among the top shortlist contenders for winning the prize.  Even if you start the novel without knowing what it is about, you will realize it quickly.  A man and his young assistant are on a plane from the US to Europe.  The hints begin immediately.  A stop to see his daughter in London--a daughter/father relationship that has been distant since he divorced his wife when she was a young girl.  A final stop in Switzerland with a side trip to see his estranged boarding school friend.  The private plane for the trip has been loaned to him by his former boss and close friend.  He was previously demoted from his position as CFO at work in spite of this friendship because he had lost his formerly exceptional ability to maintain the financial records properly.  He has a leather notebook where he writes things to help him remember them.  So what reason does he have to go to Switzerland while seeing those particular two people?  It is a book that is beautifully written and an extraordinary achievement in providing a picture of the workings of the mind of a man who can't remember the specific word but realizes he has a physical problem related to "Amy Lloyd."  The first half of the book slowly (it sometimes feels a bit too slow) builds the background history for the trip.  The last half, when everyone reading will knows for sure the answer to the question about why the trip is being made, carries the reader through the visits with the daughter and the estranged friend before finally taking us on the ride to the industrial park for the end of the novel.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5 and found myself crying at the end.

The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley

Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026--San Antonio

The Palm House by Gwendoline is a short novel that is constructed much like the old Seinfeld TV Show.  There's not a lot of story here.  It concentrates on two long-time friends, the people they know in common, and the conversations among them.  It has been longlisted for the Booker Prize.  The people are interesting, and at times I found myself laughing.  Set in London, Edmund is a single man who has worked for 25 years for a prestigious magazine.  There are hints that he may be gay, but he never seems to date anyone.  When a new publisher is named who wants to change the magazine in ways he feels will lower its quality, he becomes depressed and, thanks to a recent inheritance, resigns.  But he doesn't know what to do with himself.  Laura is struggling with life herself.  She has a difficult mother, and is tired of the lack of success in her life.  She has never had her own place; instead she has lived in shared, rather dilapidated apartments with roommates.  She can't quit work, but toward the end of the story she is able to buy a studio apartment which will be all her own after a small inheritance after her father's death.  The book consists of interactions between Edmund and Laura when they are together, and interactions of them with larger groups--the former co-employees of Edmund's at the magazine or parties or casual gatherings with friends they have in common.  I liked the fact that the author trusted me as a reader to make connections at times to information I already had on previous pages rather than dwelling on repeating information.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.